The nervous laugh, the golfer’s clap of hilarity, is applied in situations involving severely uncomfortable moments of consciousness, when one realizes that a humorist is suddenly talking about you or your type or talking about something you have no clue about, but you laugh anyway just in case – so as not to appear clueless or unhip.

These unsettling ah-ha moments occur in connection with the most scurrilous, upsetting of art forms – mockery, satire, burlesque, parody – which breed unease because here is where we undergo dramatic renovations of our comfort zone. But that’s the extent of our arsenal. They have our health benefits, we have heightened derision. They have the generals & the priests, we have the cartoonist & the stand-up comedian.

That the art of laughing at – & then getting others to laugh at – the absurd cruelty of the entitled, those who possess the power to make but mostly break is something we should not under estimate. The ultimate target of satire & comedy is hypocrisy, big hypocrisy as perpetrated upon us by those we entrust with our vote, our hard-earned wages, our lives, our rental agreements, our subscriptions, our souls.

Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert Gallery is pleased to announce Immortal Equations – A Living Installation, a solo exhibition and theatrical happening by Michael Alan. The exhibition is twofold and will take place over the course of two days. Immortal Equations will present a new series of paintings and drawings – an exhibition which will be transformed and incorporated into The Living Installation; an experiential, participatory, draw-a-thon performative happening. Immortal Equations will be on view on February 24th and February 25th from 11a.m. to 6p.m. The Living Installation will take place on February 25th from 6 p.m. till midnight.

There is an aura of displacement, indirection and obliquity in Michael Alan’s paintings. Jagged, twisted and delicate lines come together to formulate distorted representations. Dysmorphic forms with splashes of color. Twisted, squiggly, yet instantly communicative and harmonious. Intrinsically, Alan’s marks are equations, a language of its own. An evocation of gesture and expression, they capture movement that is ever so changing. Like a message in a bottle, they are timeless records of sound and energy as Alan states, “I’m not interested in creating images, I’m interested in the documentation of the living.” Immortal Equations presents a selection of such living documentations, which will then be transformed into the backdrop for The Living Installation. Read more

Kate was standing in the center of the gallery discussing the finer points of one of her most experimental pieces when Mandy interrupted her with a nervous look drawn across her face.

“Sorry to disturb you guys, but I need to borrow Kate,” Mandy said through her teeth. Most of the time such an abrupt interruption would have annoyed Kate to her core, but the disturbed look on Mandy’s face had her begging all the necessary pardons and following her friend and yoga instructor past the free-form statues and swirling canvases into the back room of the gallery, where they could speak in private.

“So what’s up?” Kate asked when they arrived, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice.

“You need to read this—but try to remain calm and centered if you can.” Mandy slipped Kate a small, white slip of paper.

“Calm and cent—“ Kate started to say, but her mouth fell open as she read the first line of the letter, which had been Xeroxed from a handwritten original. “Oh no… oh god…” she mumbled as she read. “This can’t….”

“Ok, ok,” Mandy said, failing to hide the panic in her own voice. “It’s not that bad. People know what a creep he is, ok? And even if they don’t, this isn’t exactly a normal thing to do. Kate, look at me—it’s fine.”

The documentary, BCN RISE&FALL, traces a journey from the beginnings of street art movement in Barcelona until now, emphasizing how one of the most important scenes in the world of street art was created — a film about the Golden Age of street art in Barcelona, its ultimate rise and fall.